03-13-2006, 04:00 PM
|
#61
|
I Live Here
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Rocky Mountains, USA
Posts: 10,218
|
Rhino wrote, "A process assumes the passing of time (an event happening through time), so it refutes T-theory in that T-theory lacks time."
T-theory is to time as relativity is to Newtonian mechanics. One does not negate the other, but provides deeper explanations than the 'classical' forumations.
Yes, I'm working on those deeper explanations, so don't fucking bother to ask right now.
And a process is not necessarily time-dependent. Did you lose your Quantum Mechanics decoder ring?
"Science and Mother Nature are in a marriage where Science is always surprised to come home and find Mother Nature blowing the neighbor." - Justin's Dad
|
|
|
03-13-2006, 04:02 PM
|
#62
|
I Live Here
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Rocky Mountains, USA
Posts: 10,218
|
Oh, and thanks for bumping this thread. I was meaning to look it up and respond.
Right now there's a nug with my name on it. It's calling me...
"Tennnspppaaace... smookke meeeeeee"
Good thing I only gave up nicotine.
"Science and Mother Nature are in a marriage where Science is always surprised to come home and find Mother Nature blowing the neighbor." - Justin's Dad
|
|
|
03-13-2006, 04:04 PM
|
#63
|
Organ Donator
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Beastly Muck
Posts: 13,136
|
Hang in there, Tenspace. The first five years ar the toughest.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
La propriété, c'est le vol ...
|
|
|
03-13-2006, 04:44 PM
|
#64
|
I Live Here
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 23,211
|
Quote:
anthonyjfuchs wrote
Quote:
Tenspace wrote
I'm in the "There is no time" camp, therefore I cannot subscribe to anything that delineates a condition based on rods and clocks.
|
I can't count all the early-morning conversations I had in college trying to convince people that the notion of "time" is just a human invention. Trying to explain that there is no such thing as an "hour" or a "week" that exists in reality.
Everything we think of as "time" is based on nothing more than an observable natural phenomena:
One second = 9,192,631,770 vibrations of a Caesium-133 isotope (since the minute and the hour are based solely upon the second, they are equally fabricated)
One day = originally sunrise to sunrise
One month = originally one lunar cycle
One year = originally summer solstice to summer solstice
The only real aspect of time that I've noticed is the notion of the past and the future, but that's really nothing more than a psychological division between things that have happened and things that will/might happen. When people invent constructs like timelines, they create the illusory perception that we somehow "move forward" in time. But really it's just things happening that creates a linear narrative of memory.
That's why time travel, while mathematically possible, can never happen. The past and future do not exist as places to which one can go in the same way that one can go to Rome or Liverpool. The past, effectively, does not exist at all; we know that certain things happened because photographs and documents exist now that can be scientifically shown to represent authentic historical events, but those events themselves are irretrievably gone.
I've always just thought of "time" as a way to ensure that anyone who needs to be somewhere gets there when they're supposed to.
|
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening simultaneously. ]Author unknown]
"Those who most loudly proclaim their honesty are least likely to possess it."
"Atheism: rejecting all absurdity." S.H.
"Reality, the God alternative"
|
|
|
03-13-2006, 04:47 PM
|
#65
|
I Live Here
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: prick up your ears
Posts: 20,553
|
"There is no past, just an accumulation of memories of previous configurations."
what is meant by the word "previous" here?
You can always turn tricks for a few extra bucks. If looks are an issue, there's the glory hole option, but don't expect more than ... tips.
~ Philiboid Studge
|
|
|
03-13-2006, 04:57 PM
|
#66
|
The Original Rhinoqurilla
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Somewhere Not-So-Cold with Mountains
Posts: 4,829
|
Good luck quitting smoking Ten (at least the nicotine type). I've tried and failed a few times. Damn you nicotine!
As for quantum processes being time-dependant, I'd say they're time-dependant only insofar as they necessarily exist in (or through) time (though I think the concept of "time-direction" to be flawed; I think of it more as "temporal expansion", in the same way space expands "out" (but not really out, as what would it expand out to)).
Ignore any of my objections Ten, and answer this: Why do you think a timeless universe is a better description than a "timely" universe? What benefits do you think this theory has?
Wait just a minute-You expect me to believe-That all this misbehaving-Grew from one enchanted tree? And helpless to fight it-We should all be satisfied-With this magical explanation-For why the living die-And why it's hard to be a decent human being - David Bazan
|
|
|
03-13-2006, 05:14 PM
|
#67
|
I Live Here
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: prick up your ears
Posts: 20,553
|
Time is built into quantum mechanics at a fundamental level. Heisenbergs uncertainy principle, a cornerston of QM can be formulated in a number of ways, each involving a pair of operators which do not commute (when acting on a weavefunction, obviously). The most well known examples are momentum and position and energy and time. The details of non-commuting operators is a bit involved (it basically means that the order you use them in matters). That means that energy and time have the same uncertainty as position and momentum: i.e., knowledge of one can only be gained at the cost of the other (sort of). An example of this in use is the stability of nuclei or atoms. If you excite an atom or a nucleus it will eventually decay back down to it's ground state (unless you excite it to a state that needs to dump some momentum or something, in which case it will stay there for along time (in nuclear physics these are called isomeric states). The point is, in most cases the lifetime of the excited state depends on the energy width. The decay of the excited state will release a photon that has a linewidth based on the energy width of the excited state from which it came. The linewidth of the photon and the lifetime of the excited state obey the energy-time formulation of the uncertainty principle. This is very important in laser physics. So, I don't see how this fits in with a timeless universe unless you also get rid of space as well.
You can always turn tricks for a few extra bucks. If looks are an issue, there's the glory hole option, but don't expect more than ... tips.
~ Philiboid Studge
|
|
|
03-13-2006, 07:17 PM
|
#68
|
I Live Here
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Rocky Mountains, USA
Posts: 10,218
|
Quote:
Philboid Studge wrote
Hang in there, Tenspace. The first five years ar the toughest.
|
Gee, thanks. I'll remember that.
"Science and Mother Nature are in a marriage where Science is always surprised to come home and find Mother Nature blowing the neighbor." - Justin's Dad
|
|
|
03-13-2006, 07:25 PM
|
#69
|
I Live Here
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Rocky Mountains, USA
Posts: 10,218
|
Quote:
Choobus wrote
"There is no past, just an accumulation of memories of previous configurations."
what is meant by the word "previous" here?
|
Thanks for identifying the chink in my theory. First, there is no real understanding of the reason we humans experience time in a unidirectional linear manner; some even say that consciousness is the realization of each moment in spacetime.
Multiple multidimensional configurations represented by a mechanism which gives the appearance of consecutive moments to our 3+1 reality. That is the best description I can offer right now.
And Choob, I understand what you're saying in the other post regarding non-commutation. I shall post at length on this subject in the near future. I'm still slogging through maths I haven't seen in years.
Barbour's example uses the time-independent Schrodinger equation to represent each 'Now' moment.
"Science and Mother Nature are in a marriage where Science is always surprised to come home and find Mother Nature blowing the neighbor." - Justin's Dad
|
|
|
03-13-2006, 07:28 PM
|
#70
|
I Live Here
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Rocky Mountains, USA
Posts: 10,218
|
Rhino said, "Ignore any of my objections Ten, and answer this: Why do you think a timeless universe is a better description than a "timely" universe? What benefits do you think this theory has?"
Because it gives us something to investigate. Time is always taken for granted, accepted and used but never prodded or poked. The few times we do poke at it, we find it's just as malleable as matter.
And it's not really "timeless universe" vs timely - it is quite possible that our "timely universe" is part of a grander timeless existence.
"Science and Mother Nature are in a marriage where Science is always surprised to come home and find Mother Nature blowing the neighbor." - Justin's Dad
|
|
|
03-13-2006, 08:21 PM
|
#71
|
The Original Rhinoqurilla
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Somewhere Not-So-Cold with Mountains
Posts: 4,829
|
Quote:
Tenspace wrote
Because it gives us something to investigate. Time is always taken for granted, accepted and used but never prodded or poked. The few times we do poke at it, we find it's just as malleable as matter.
|
Weak. Hella weak. I'm not attacking you for investigating theories of a timeless universe, I'm attacking you for defending a view of a timeless universe. :D
I agree that Time is something we need to investigate, and something we still know little about. I just think the "timeless" route is barking up the wrong tree. It doesn't seem to provide a "better" explanation/description of the universe than a "timely" one.
Quote:
And it's not really "timeless universe" vs timely - it is quite possible that our "timely universe" is part of a grander timeless existence.
|
If our universe exists as part of a greater "multi-verse" where time, and the laws of physics, don't apply, there's nothing you can say about it that would be true. You run into the same problem as Deists, where you claim something exists "out-there", but you can't say anything true about it (as any such propositions would fall outside of the scope of reference and truth-functionality).
Wait just a minute-You expect me to believe-That all this misbehaving-Grew from one enchanted tree? And helpless to fight it-We should all be satisfied-With this magical explanation-For why the living die-And why it's hard to be a decent human being - David Bazan
|
|
|
03-27-2006, 09:05 AM
|
#72
|
The Original Rhinoqurilla
Join Date: Apr 2005
Location: Somewhere Not-So-Cold with Mountains
Posts: 4,829
|
Though this thread is dead, I thought I'd post that Scientific American is currently running a special issue on time. I picked it up this weekend, and it looks pretty good (haven't had time to sit down and read through it yet).
Wait just a minute-You expect me to believe-That all this misbehaving-Grew from one enchanted tree? And helpless to fight it-We should all be satisfied-With this magical explanation-For why the living die-And why it's hard to be a decent human being - David Bazan
|
|
|
03-27-2006, 03:05 PM
|
#73
|
I Live Here
Join Date: Feb 2005
Posts: 23,211
|
Quote:
Rhinoqulous wrote
Though this thread is dead, I thought I'd post that Scientific American is currently running a special issue on time. I picked it up this weekend, and it looks pretty good (haven't had time to sit down and read through it yet).
|
Isn't it about time?
"Those who most loudly proclaim their honesty are least likely to possess it."
"Atheism: rejecting all absurdity." S.H.
"Reality, the God alternative"
|
|
|
03-28-2006, 10:02 AM
|
#74
|
I Live Here
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Rocky Mountains, USA
Posts: 10,218
|
Quote:
Rhinoqulous (parodied by Tenspace) wrote
I agree that Probability is something we need to investigate, and something we still know little about. I just think the "probabilistic" route is barking up the wrong tree. It doesn't seem to provide a "better" explanation/description of the universe than a "classical" one.
|
From Conversations between Schrodinger and Heisenberg, 1923
"Science and Mother Nature are in a marriage where Science is always surprised to come home and find Mother Nature blowing the neighbor." - Justin's Dad
|
|
|
03-28-2006, 10:05 AM
|
#75
|
I Live Here
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Rocky Mountains, USA
Posts: 10,218
|
Quote:
Rhinoqulous wrote
If our universe exists as part of a greater "multi-verse" where time, and the laws of physics, don't apply, there's nothing you can say about it that would be true. You run into the same problem as Deists, where you claim something exists "out-there", but you can't say anything true about it (as any such propositions would fall outside of the scope of reference and truth-functionality).
|
But.. first, I didn't say the laws of physics would not apply - those are your words. Second, I am not just assuming something is "out there" in the sense of something immeasurable and untestable like a god. I stand firm in my belief that these timeless scenarios will allow objective testing, and may even provide a mechanism for realizing facts about those other universes.
"Science and Mother Nature are in a marriage where Science is always surprised to come home and find Mother Nature blowing the neighbor." - Justin's Dad
|
|
|
Thread Tools |
|
Display Modes |
Linear Mode
|
Posting Rules
|
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
HTML code is Off
|
|
|
All times are GMT -7. The time now is 03:05 PM.
|